Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at The City

Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at The City College of New York, CUNY
NEWSLETTER
______________________________________________________________________________
April 2009
Faculty Notes
Our Adjunct Instructor Bindeshwari
Aggarwal presented a paper entitled
“Improving Proficiency through Innovation in
Teaching Hindi” at the Hindi, Urdu and
Punjabi LEARN (Language Education and
Resource Network) Conference, Monterrey,
California, December 4-5, 2008.
Distinguished Lecturer Carmen Boullosa
published the novel El complot de los
románticos (Editorial Siruela, Madrid, 2009),
awarded with the Prize Café Gijón, and
poems in the collections Los poetas del Hay
2009 (edited by the literary supplement
Arcardia, Bogotá, Colombia, 2009), and
Poésie mexicaine (French translations, Ed.
Poésie Points-Ècrits des Forges/ Le Castor
Astral, France, 2009). She attended the Hay
Festival in Cartagena, Colombia, and the
Salón du Livre, in Paris, and was a member of
the jury for the Premio Casa de las Américas,
in Cuba.
Professor Silvia Burunat has just published
her latest book, a 234-page work inspired by
the death of her husband, Dr. Julio Burunat on
April 21 of 2005. It is entitled Autobiografía
póstuma, and is part of the Narrativa
collection of Editorial Betania in Madrid,
Spain. She has taken over her husband‟s
voice, who narrates his autobiography,
emphasizing the fifteen years he spent in the
Society of Jesus, before they met in the spring
of 1969, and covering geographic locations
such as Cuba, Spain, Venezuela, Miami and
New York in the United States, and Canada.
The last part of the book deals with death and
its aftermath as seen in several world cultures,
including the Toltecs and Olmecs in Mexico
and the Celts in Europe, besides the
mainstream religions.
Professor Laura Callahan wrote a double
book review for the Modern Language
Journal, on the Spanish heritage speaker
textbooks La lengua que heredamos: Curso
de español para bilingües (6th ed., Sarah
Marqués, 2009, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley) and ¡Sí
se puede! Un curso transicional para
hispanohablantes (María Carreira and
Michelle Geoffrion-Vinci, 2008, Boston:
Houghton Mifflin). She presented a paper
entitled “Speaking Spanish over the
telephone: Using a second language in service
encounters with native speakers” at the 22nd
Conference on Spanish in the United States,
Coral Gables-Miami, Florida, February 21,
2009. She gave a departmental lecture entitled
“Speaking with (dis)respect: A pilot study of
reactions to Mock Spanish” on February 26,
2009. Professor Callahan delivered one of the
keynote lectures at the Fourteenth Annual
Graduate Students‟ Conference in the Ph.D.
Program in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian
Literatures and Languages, CUNY Graduate
Center, March 21, 2009, with a presentation
of research from her book Spanish and
English in U.S. Service Encounters (Palgrave
Macmillan, February 2009). She will give a
paper entitled “Spanish/English
codeswitching in service encounters:
Accommodation to the customer‟s language
choice and perceived linguistic affiliation” at
the RISLUS Research Forum, CUNY
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Faculty Notes/Prof. Callahan, cont.
Graduate Center, on May 22, 2009. She will
present “The language learner as legitimate
L2 user: Speaking Spanish in U.S. service
Encounters” at the American Association of
Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Annual
Meeting, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, July
9-12, 2009.
Distinguished Professor Raquel Chang-
Rodríguez has published the following book
chapters: “Spanish Women in First New
Chronicle and Good Government: the
Intersections of Culture and Gender.” Ed.
Mabel Moraña and Carlos Jáuregui.
Revisiting the Colonial Question in Latin
America. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana
/Vervuert, 2008. 59-78; “La Florida del Inca:
proyección americana y transatlántica.” In
Palabras e ideas. Ida y vuelta. Ed. Pier Luigi
Crovetto and Laura Sanfelici. CD ROM.
Roma: Riuniti, 2008; and “La Florida y el
suroeste: letras de la frontera norte.” Ed.
Humberto López Morales. Enciclopedia del
español en los Estados Unidos. Madrid:
Santillana, 2008. 56-74. She was invited to
participate in the 16th international
symposium on the history of Lima, held at the
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos,
20-21 January, 2009, with a paper on “La
Florida del Inca, Garcilaso y la frontera norte
del imperio español,” and to deliver the
keynote speech on “El Inca Garcilaso:
pertinencias personales y peninsulares,” at the
14th Graduate Student Conference, 20-21
March, Ph.D. Program in Hispanic and Luso-
Brazilian Literatures and Languages,
Graduate Center, CUNY. In recognition of
her contributions to the study of Peruvian
literature and culture, the Academia Peruana
de la Lengua, an affiliate of the Royal
Academy of the Spanish Language in Madrid,
just elected Professor Chang-Rodríguez
Académica Correspondiente.
Professor Ya-chen Chen signed publication
contracts for two new books: Women in
Taiwan: Social and Cultural Perspectives
(University of Indianapolis Press); Women
and Gender in Chinese Martial Arts Films of
the New Millennium (Lexington/Roman &
Littlefield). The first book will come out in
either summer or fall 2009. She has three new
journal articles. They are “Mother Earth
Tuya‟s Marriage” in Journal of Asian
Cinema; “The Hakka Female „Orphan of
Asia‟ in Li Qiao‟s Wintry Night” in American
Journal of Chinese Studies; and “Wu Zetian
Behind Empress Wan: Chinese Traditions in
The Banquet” in Borrowers and Lenders:
Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation. In
addition, she will present an academic
conference paper, “Strategic Counter-
Construction of Penis Envy and
Phallocentrism: Qing Nü and Wan‟er in The
Banquet and Ophelia in Hamlet,” in the 2009
Annual Convention of the AAS (Association
for Asian Studies) in March 2009. Finally,
Professor Chen was recently interviewed by a
student editor from one of our school
newspapers, The Campus. The article (A
Meaningful Purpose: A Teacher Profile) was
published on February 23.
On February 21 Professor Dulce García read
a paper titled “Los espacios de la Monja de
Carrión” in the 4th Interdisciplinary
Colloquium on Spanish and Latin American
Literatures, Linguistics, and Cultures at the
University of Florida. Our graduate student
Paola Evangelista also read a paper in this
conference titled “La palabra como espacio
descriptivo en Señas de identidad.” We feel
very proud of her! Professor Dulce García and
Austrian professor, Dr. Hilda Fanta, gave a
talk/workshop in the International Congress
for Professional Development of Teachers of
English. The conference “Dynamic Matrix‟:
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Faculty Notes/Prof. García, cont.
Principles of Emotionally & Cognitively
Intelligent Teaching/Thinking,” took place on
February 26th at the University of Palermo,
Buenos Aires. Prof. Dulce García was invited
to give a workshop on March 6 titled “Games
and Play in the Language Classroom” in the
World Languages Symposium 2009, Chicago,
IL. Conexiones, the intermediate Spanish
textbook of which Prof. García is coauthor,
just released its 4th edition. Several CCNY
Spanish Majors participated in the video
component of the Conexiones Program:
Yasmín Garves (2009), Paola Evangelista
(MA in Spanish student), Kristine Núñez
(2008), Rossibely Vargas, and Cindy Vera,
who is currently finishing her BA in Spanish.
On May 16, 2008 a conference on Voces de
los Andes took place at King Juan Carlos
Center at New York University, sponsored by
NYU Steinhardt SBETAC (Spanish Bilingual
Education Technical Assistance Center),
NYU CLACS (Center for Latin American and
Caribbean Studies), ILAS (Institute of Latin
American Studies) and SUNY. Eduardo
Félix Medrano, CCNY M.A. graduate and
present Adjunct Lecturer, was invited to
read his Andean poems from his manuscript
Alusiones. The Keynote speaker was Karl
Swinehart and the salutatorian was Pedro A.
Noguera, Ph.D. The same year in the NYU
SBETAC newsletter Eduardo Medrano was
featured as a pedagogue who uses the latest
strategies to teach languages. Mrs. Aida
Delgado, consultant for NYU SBETAC,
wrote the article “Eye on the Classroom: An
Interview with Eduardo Medrano” in which
they discuss language arts strategies to help
students extract meaning from texts. Mrs.
Delgado wrote: “Eduardo F. Medrano, a
native of Bolivia . . . utilizes a number of
strategies to help Spanish-speaking students
who lack reading and writing skills in their
native language.” Mr. Medrano has taught
Spanish native language arts and Spanish as a
foreign language to Newtown High School
students in Queens since 1992. Recently, he
accepted the position of Assistant Principal at
the high school.
Our graduate student and adjunct
instructor of Spanish Javier Múñoz has
been invited to speak about “Imagen y
estética del nuevo cine coreano.” The event
will take place on the second week of July in
Cuenca (Ecuador) in the Casa de la Cultura
Núcleo del Azuay building. It will be
sponsored by the Casa de la Cultura and the
local municipality. Javier Múñoz will show
and discuss works from South Korean
directors such as Hong Sang-soo, Lee Changdong,
Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, and
Bong Joon-ho. Panel discussions will be held
every evening. Javier extends special thanks
to Dr. Jórge Dávila, president of the Casa de
la Cultura Núcleo del Azuar, for his support.
Professor Devid Paolini was invited to speak
about “New Directions in Medieval
Scholarship” at a roundtable held at the
Graduate Center and organized by the CUNY
Medieval Studies Area Group on February 20,
2009. He published two articles: “Un
manuscrito desconocido del Tratado de cómo
al hombre es necesario amar (Ms. 18.665/30
de la BNE),” eHumanista, 11 (2008), 65-80;
and “Fernando de Pulgar, Glosa a las Coplas
de Mingo Revulgo (Addenda et corrigenda),”
Revista de literatura medieval XX (2008),
247-252. He has three forthcoming articles
and one forthcoming review. The three
articles are entitled: “Acerca de unos
manuscritos „desconocidos‟ de la Biblioteca
Nacional de España,” Revista de literatura
medieval, XXI (2009); “La tradición
manuscrita e impresa de las Coplas de Mingo
Revulgo,” in the Actas de Medievalia,
Congreso Internacional, XI Jornadas
Medievales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México, México, 2006; and “Los Milagros
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Faculty Notes/Prof. Paolini, cont.
de Nuestra Señora y el arte de la memoria,”
Incipit, XXVIII (2008). His review, “La
Celestina de Fernando de Rojas. Dirección de
Beatriz Córdoba. Teatro Círculo (Nueva
York). Octubre-Noviembre de 2008,” will be
published in the next number of Celestinesca.
At the moment he is revising the manuscript
of his Ph.D. dissertation (Las Coplas de
Mingo Revulgo. Estudio preliminar, edición
crítica y notas) that will probably be
published by the University of Salamanca. He
is also the coordinator of a two volume
homage to professor Joseph T. Snow (one of
the best-known scholars of the Celestina and
founder and former editor of Celestinesca, a
journal dedicated to Celestina studies) that
will be published in 2010 by the Hispanic
Seminary of Medieval Studies. Finally, he
went with one of his classes to see Calderón
de la Barca‟s play La vida es sueño that was
performed at Repertorio Español Theatre on
March 27.
Professor Carlos Riobó will be conducting
research in Havana, Cuba over spring break in
April, thanks to a PSC-CUNY research grant.
He will be on the panel “Inventions of
Identity, Symbolic Economy, and Cultural
Consumption” at the Latin American Studies
Association‟s (LASA) 2009 congress in Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil, where he will give his talk
in June. He has proposed a special session on
captivity narratives for the 2009 MLA
convention in December, in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. To round things out, his spouse
Danny Alter and he are expecting a baby boy
in August.
Professor Eve Sourian is the Chair of a
committee at the SPFFA (Société des
Professeurs Français et Francophones
d‟Amérique) that gives scholarships for
undergraduate and graduate students. This
year they gave $ 53,000 in scholarships.
Professor Elizabeth Starčević invited the
well-known Spanish writer Lidia Falcón to
speak to her class on contemporary Spanish
theater. Ms. Falcón, who has published
extensively in all genres on women's issues,
gave a talk entitled: “Una escritora feminista
habla de su teatro.” She also organized a trip
to the Repertorio Español theater so that her
class could see F. García Lorca‟s play La casa
de Bernarda Alba. One of Professor
Starcevic‟s weavings is currently in the City
Women Make Art exhibition for Women's
History Month in the Cohen Library Archives
Gallery at CCNY.
Professor Araceli Tinajero‟s book, Cultura
y letras cubanas en el siglo XXI, an edited
volume on Cuban art, film, literature and
cultural institutions, is in production at
Iberoamericana (Madrid) and is scheduled to
appear in October, 2009. In February, Araceli
was invited by the Universidad de Alcalá and
the Universidad de Sevilla to teach a seminar
on “The Art of Reading.” As a cofounder of
the Mexico Study Group at the Bildner Center
for Western Hemisphere Studies, she
organized discussion panels on ethnography,
literature, and history. Tinajero was part of
the literature panel and presented the paper
“La frontera en la literatura mexicana
contemporánea” (March 13, 2009). Reviews
of her El lector de tabaquería have been
published in the French magazines L’Amateur
de Cigare and Books, as well as in the
Spanish journal Cultura Escrita y Sociedad
(2009).
Professor Vanessa K. Valdés was invited to
and attended the conference “Una mirada al
futuro: Visualizing the Future of Spanish
Education,” in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her
reviews of Dara Goldman‟s Out of Bounds:
Islands and the Demarcation of Identity in the
Hispanic Caribbean (2008) and Alexandra
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Faculty Notes/Prof. Valdés, cont.
Isfahani-Hammond‟s anthology of essays,
The Masters and the Slaves: Plantation
Relations and Mestizaje in American
Imaginaries (2005), will be published shortly
in Callaloo. Her review of Lázaro Lima‟s The
Latino Body: Crisis Identities in American
Literary and Cultural Memory (2007) will
appear in the Spring 2009 issue of The
MELUS Journal. On March 26 she spoke at
the 69th Annual Convention and 72nd
Anniversary of the College Language
Association, presenting her paper, “Diasporic
Revelation in the Works of Audre Lorde and
Ntozake Shange.” She has also been invited
to speak at the CUNY Academy for the
Humanities and Sciences Junior Faculty
Colloquium Series on April 2 in the Graduate
Center, where she will present her paper
“Finding Solace in Exile: Dreaming in
Cuban.” In her capacity as Language
Coordinator of the Spanish Language
Program, she would like to thank all of her
colleagues, both full-time and part-time
faculty, for all of their work this academic
year. Finally, she is also proud to announce
that the student group for which she serves as
faculty advisor, Women Lead Now!, will be
putting on a student production of Eve
Ensler‟s The Vagina Monologues at the end of
April.
Adjunct Instructor Marcos Wasem has
published his essay Barroso y sublime:
poética para Néstor Perlongher in Buenos
Aires (Godot) with an introduction by
Professor Roberto Echavarren. The book is
the product of the research he conducted at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem between
2002 and 2005. He also read his paper
“Transformaciones del barroco: el caso
Néstor Perlongher” at the XXXVII
International Conference of the Instituto
Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana,
Puebla, in June 2008.
Students Notes
Kianny Antigua, alumna of The City
College (Spanish M.A. in 2009), will publish
a poem (“Miss Athena”) in the next number
of El Cid, the literary magazine of Sigma
Delta Pi, the National Hispanic Honor
Society. http://www.citadel.edu/mlng/elcid/
Spanish Major, Adam Bierman, was hired
to teach Spanish in the Scholars' Academy
(27Q323) which is one of the top ranked
Middle Schools in New York State.
Professor Araceli Tinajero would like to
congratulate her students Compton
Bradshaw and Aleksin H. Ortega for having
finished their Master‟s theses.
Spanish Major, María Gómez (class of 2008)
is working as a first grade teacher in PS192!
Our Spanish Major, Adela González, was
awarded the prestigious City College
Fellowship for excellent students who wish to
become college professors.
Kimberly Paige Young, a student of both
Latin and French, has been offered the
prestigious four-year Javits Fellowship to
study Comparative Literature in the doctoral
program at the CUNY Graduate Center.
The essay “Imágenes contra el olvido: el Perú
colonial en las ilustraciones de fray Diego de
Ocaña” written by Beatriz Carolina Peña,
alumna of The City College (Spanish M.A.
in 1998), made finalist in the I Bienal de
Ensayo of the prestigious Premio Cope
Internacional 2008, sponsored by COPE
(Petróleos de Perú). It will be recognized with
a diploma on April 23, 2009. This same essay
was awarded a Mention in the 49th edition of
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Students Notes, cont.
the Premio Literario Casa de las Américas
2008 in the category of Ensayo de tema
histórico-social. “Imágenes contra el olvido:
el Perú colonial en las ilustraciones de fray
Diego de Ocaña” is a revised, shortened
version of her dissertation, directed by
Distinguished Professor Raquel Chang-
Rodríguez at the Graduate School and
University Center (CUNY) and defended in
May of 2007.
From the French Exchange
Program
(publication suggested by Adjunct Lecturer
Diana Silverman)
My Cultural Immersion (Fall 2008)
I thought I was prepared for my
semester abroad in Paris [Fall 2008]. I have
been studying French ever since I can
remember and therefore had a fair amount of
confidence in my abilities. I had gotten to
know French language, history, and literature
through books, and even did the requisite
research on places to go and see once I got
there. However, learning a language through
books within the safe confines of a university
setting is far different from being totally
immersed in it. The minute my plane landed
at Charles de Gaulle airport it hit me hard:
there would be no faking it, no getting by
with a minimal amount of conversation. I
would be expected to perform in a way that I
had never done before. Paris would be my
own personal “sink or swim” survival boot
camp. I tried to suppress the quiet panic that
began to build up inside of me. I would be
forced like it or not, to eat, drink, sleep, and
breathe not only the language, but the culture.
I was to take it all in and absorb it like a
sponge. There is a distinct difference between
staying in Paris for a semester, somewhat
removed from the whole experience, and
really living in it. You are both physically and
emotionally invested.
Paris is a lot like New York in that
people from all over the world flock there.
You can walk the streets, or take the metro at
any given time and hear dozens of different
languages being spoken. It was great to be
able to take classes with students from other
countries within the European Union as well
as the Middle East, Africa and Asia. They
were delighted to hear that I was from the
United States as it would provide them with
the opportunity to practice their English
conversational skills with me. To tell the
truth, I found that at times I was speaking a
lot more English than I would like. After all, I
did not come all the way to Paris to brush up
on my English! My everyday interactions
with shopkeepers, waiters, clerks and fellow
passengers on the metro provided me with the
conversational practice that I needed. In New
York wouldn‟t be caught without my Ipod,
but curiously enough, I didn‟t need one in
Paris. It was far more interesting to tune into
what was being said. Little by little, I came to
a real understanding of what my stay in Paris
was really about: living like a local in order to
become one. That feeling is absolutely
priceless. I knew I‟d made the transition when
people would come up to me to ask me for
information or directions, and I was able to
respond without hesitation. That to me was
my flannel shirt moment: I was truly
comfortable. I was approached because I
exuded that certain something that is unique
only to Parisians. I could not remain detached
when you are packed into a metro car like a
sardine in the middle of rush hour, nor could I
remain unaffected when surrounded by so
much awe inspiring beauty and history
everywhere. Living in Paris has changed me
in a way that is truly personal. Paris has
become for me that old flannel shirt, only
infinitely more stylish, which I would layer
6

My Cultural Immersion, cont.
on beneath my coat to guard against the damp
and dreary days of winter. From here on it
will forever be a huge part of me. Clichéd or
not, I am and always will be one of its biggest
fans.
Submitted by Joan Wedderburn – Fren 313
A composition by an ESL
student
(publication suggested by
Professor Carole Berger)
Jesus of the Hill Avenue, is a two –
century old street in Havana, that stands out
because of its endless row of columns
sidelining it. From the south, where it begins,
to the north, where it ends, that single pattern
repeats again and again. Cuban writer Eliseo
Diego found inspiration in its unique quality
to write his famous poem, “By Jesus of the
Hill Avenue,” where he refers to his
childhood as surrounded by columns.
Columns stand pompously, with their
Corinthian capitals, looking down their noses
at the stream of cars from the 50s that
populate the pavement. They have dominated
the scene for centuries, they might think, and
no one can defeat them in their battle against
time. For the rest of us though, columns and
cars coexist in harmony as if it were a forest
opening way to a river.
One can be surprised by the wonders
that can be seen while walking around Jesus
of the Hill Avenue. Simple people move
energetically up and down the street with tons
of different concerns, ideas and creativity
triggered by necessity, creating a generation
of articles made out of junk.
Television antennas made out of
aluminum trays, toilets and washing machine
drums used as flower pots, rudimentary
means of transportation made out of wood,
and much more can be found walking up the
hill. One of the icons not only of Jesus of the
Hill but of Havana City as a whole is El
Camello, meaning the camel. As its name
suggests El Camello is a massive camelshaped
bus hauled by a dinosauric truck,
inside which a staggering 300 people fit
standing as close to each other as one can
possibly imagine. It is worth mentioning that
this was an innovative solution of the
president, demonstrating that in Cuba simple
people are not the only ones who turn junk
into usable things.
If the neighborhood around Jesus of
the Hill is recognized as the one with the
highest demographic density in the country,
then street alone should be considered the
busiest. Black and mulattos, the young and
the aged, the criminal and the honest,
converge in the same place every morning,
every afternoon and every night. The
neighbors go outside to party in the public
portals guarded by columns, where cheer,
music and the clacking sound of dominoes
chips play in unison with the roar of car
engines and the buzz of pedestrians rushing
home, producing the sensation that one is in
three different places at once.
So many years have passed by, and the
old avenue is still standing, in spite of the
scarcities it has faced. There is something I
haven‟t told yet; prolonged depression has
been slowly eroding it away. Many of the
houses facing the street have given up hope
and are starting to crumble. What once was an
infinite row of columns now resembles a
damaged smile with missing teeth. Virtually
no house bears a trace of paint on their
facades, having to hide their faces like
poverty stricken children wearing tatters in a
palace. The remains of succumbed buildings
flounder being carried by the wind in any
direction, just like the ashes of a martyr in his
or her homeland. Jesus of the Hill, it is
7

A Composition by an ESL student, cont.
depressing to see you vanish and perhaps
never see you again! Deep inside my heart I
believe you will be resurrected and recover
your original appearance so that Cuban
writers can sit again at the foot of columns
and reflect on your beauty.
Submitted by Alejandro Morejon - ESL 30
AB
Workshop in French
Theatre at Lumières
LUMIÈRES,
The Center for French Culture housed in the
Foreign Languages and Literature Department
of the Humanities and Arts division offers
weekly extra curriculum workshops.
In Spring 2009 the concentration is on French
Theatre and it will continue in Fall 2009.
Here is what some students had to say about
the extra curriculum program:
1) My experience at Lumières was an
exceptional one. It was a place where I
learned lifelong skills in an academic
environment that felt more like fun than work.
(Ariel Kouvaras)
2) …The second semester was devoted to
writing and making a cinescript. It was the
BEST! As an older student, who makes a
living in theatre, it made me happy to see the
younger students get into creating characters,
writing their lines, coming up with costume
and scenic ideas, learning colloquialisms and
delving into French culture and history.
(Gretchen Metzloff)
developed into a film project. As exciting as
filmmaking was, the best experience was
being able to advance in specific French. At
the very same time, we were building a solid
foundation in French history and theatre. My
experience with Lumières not only helped me
to be a better person socially but showered the
gift of friendship on me. (Nana Banafo)
For more information see:
www.ccny.cuny.edu/lumieres
lumieres@ccny.cuny.edu
NAC 6/359
# 7667
Asian Studies Program
News
The Asian Language Club, Asian Culture
Club and Asian Studies Program co-hosted
the Lantern Festival Celebration Party from
12 noon to 2 pm on February 5, 2009.
Authentic Asian foods in this party included
rice balls, Chinese-style red bean rice cake,
Taiwanese-style homemade fried rice,
Japanese-style cream puffs, Malaysian-style
sweet cake, candies, cookies, etc.
For more information about the:
Department of Foreign Languages and
Literatures, please call 212-650-6731, or
stop by the Department,
NAC 5/223.
http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/hu
manities/foreignlang/
3) …During the last two semesters, we
engaged in readings on Fridays which later
8